Chapter 8: Those Stupid Marauders

Alice had decided by the first morning that throughout the school year she would spend most of her time with Jeff and his roommates, for her own were annoying to say the least. The girls in her dorm had whined because the room was too cold and old-fashioned, and spent hours with the light still on trying to arrange their decorations just so. When they had finally agreed that it was time for lights out, they had spent hours complaining about the fact that all the cute older boys were at the Hufflepuff table and discussing all the pros and cons of different brands of clothing from hats all the way to underwear. And if this were not enough, they woke up bright and early the following morning in order to make sure their hair was absolutely perfect for the day, and they did not do so in a quiet manner.

The girls in Alice's room were named Teresa, Emily, Erica, and Lucille. The easiest by far to take was Erica. She was very quiet and mostly just listened to whatever Teresa, Emily, or Lucille said, and imitated them. She was very pretty, with golden curls and light blue eyes. Of course, all the girls in the dorm were pretty, but most of them Alice saw as "airheads."

Emily was by far the worst. She would talk constantly about herself, and expect everyone else to be interested. She also, to Alice, seemed to have an air of self importance and look down on those she thought inferior to her. Alice could not help but feel like she was one of those that Emily held in contempt. For Emily had talked eagerly to all the other girls but barely payed Alice any notice.

As soon as Alice felt that it was a reasonable enough time to be up and around, she left her dormitory. She could tell that Jeff was not up yet, for he certainly would have waited for her in the common room if he was. Sighing, she paced a couple of turns around the room and finally resigned herself to sitting in one of the armchairs near the empty fireplace.

Students were beginning to stir. Dorcas Meadowes walked up to Alice and asked, "Do you need help finding the Great Hall again?"

Alice shook her head. "No, I'm just waiting for my friend," she said dismissively.

Dorcas moved on, but before she did she told Alice to make sure and let her know if she needed anything.

Alice sighed as more and more students walked through the room. She was beginning to get impatient. Why was Jeff taking so long? Was he going to stay in bed until noon on the first morning?

There was a tap on Alice's shoulder. She spun around to see one of the boys from the train yesterday, the one with the messy hair and glasses. "What do you want?" she asked him quite rudely.

"Are you wondering where your friend is?" he asked her.

Alice scowled at him. She had no wish to be patronized by he and his gang yet again, and wished she could just be invisible to him. "Why do you ask?" she said.

He smirked. "Well, I don't think he'll be out here for a little while," he said. With that, he walked over to three other boys and they left the common room. One of them was the other boy from the train yesterday.

This was enough for Alice. She got to her feet and climbed the boys staircase. She found Jeff's dormitory and was about to pound on the door when it opened.

Jeff and two other boys stood there. Alice's eyes nearly popped out of her head at the sight of them. Each one of them had hair streaked with multiple colors. Jeff's was the worst; he had a huge purple streak in his hair and some splatters of red, blue, green, and orange.

"Jeff!" cried Alice. "What happened?"

The boys laughed. "Some of the third year boys pulled a prank on us," explained one of the boys that Alice didn't know. "They put a charm on our dormitory so that it rained different colors. I don't think they'll wash out for a few hours at least."

They made their way to the Great Hall for breakfast. Along the way, several people complemented the boys on their hairstyles. This really annoyed Alice, and she wondered why Jeff and the others didn't seem at all bothered by this. Finally, after they had sat down at the Gryffindor table to eat breakfast, Alice asked, "Aren't you angry at them, Jeff?"

"Angry?" asked Jeff, his fork freezing over his eggs. "Why would I be angry at them? Obviously this is their way of welcoming us to Hogwarts!"

The other boys, Larry and one who Alice had just learned was named Sturgis, looked at Alice in confusion. They obviously didn't understand why she was making such a big deal about this. Still, Alice felt inclined to continue.

"But Jeff, those are the same boys who kicked us out of the compartment on the ride to school!"

Jeff waved his hand. "Oh, are you still on about that?" he asked. He took a bite of eggs and swallowed. "Alice, they didn't mean it personally. Those boys are just kind of flamboyant. They like to joke around and pick on people, but it's just because they like them."

Alice wasn't so sure, but she could see no point in arguing this any further. The conversation took its turn as the boys started discussing Quidditch teams.

The first class of the day for the Gryffindors and Slytherins was Potions. Alice wasn't all too sure about the subject matter, but she liked Slughorn all right. Sure, he got a bit carried away when he talked about all the famous people he knew and his "slug club", but he was nice to Alice and seemed to know his subject.

Jeff and Alice had a hard time finding the History of Magic classroom afterwards, and when they finally entered the room the teacher was already deep into a lecture. However, they were relieved when he didn't even look up from his notes and they were able to slip in completely unnoticed by him. Of course, they weren't so relieved when they discovered how boring his class was going to be.

Their biggest problem was trying to find the Transfiguration room after lunch. They were pretty sure it was on the seventh floor, but every classroom they passed was the wrong one. Alice sighed. "We better hurry; the class is about to start. Maybe we should find some older student who can point us in the right direction."

As she said this, the four annoying boys, the "Marauders", Alice had heard them called, were passing by. Before Alice could stop him, Jeff said, "Hey, can any of you tell us where Professor McGonagal's class is?"

They turned. The tall one with aristocratic features and gray eyes smiled. "Hey, Jeff, right?"

"Yeah," said Jeff. "And you're..."

"Sirius," supplied the boy. "See, your problem is that you're on the wrong floor."

Jeff looked a tad bit embarassed. "Are you serious?" he asked heavily.

"Absolutely," he said. The other boy nodded, with a slight smile on his face.

"Well, what floor then?" Alice asked impatiently.

The bespectabled boy looked at her and grinned. "Go downstairs to the sixth floor. On it, you will see a fountain with a statue of a unicorn. Right behind it is an invisible door. Walk through it and at the end of the corridor you should find McGonagal's room."

They turned around good-naturedly. Alice was sure she heard the boy named Sirius chuckle as they walked off.

"Well, no wonder we couldn't find it," said Jeff. "Not only were we on the wrong floor, but it's also concealed behind an hidden door! Come on."

And so they descended to the sixth floor. Luckily, the unicorn fountain did not take long at all to spot. Jeff put his hand on the wall behind it. "Well, there's no real wall here, that's for sure," he said, and he promptly walked through the wall and disappeared.

Alice followed suit. The corridor they had entered was a dimly lit one only illuminated by the occasional floating candle. They walked to the end of it where they found a door. "All right," said Jeff. "I think we found it."

He cracked open the door, and they entered it to see that they were now in a large symmetrical room with walls lined with doors. "This can't be right," said Alice. "He was probably playing a joke on us." She turned around to go back, but the door slammed on its own and merged into the wall, disappearing from sight. She put both hands against the wall and pushed, hard, but it wouldn't budge.

They were stuck in a maze.